KODA

Bought a shiny new mouse today: the wireless optical Logitech LX7. Everything worked great out of box, until at around 11:30pm I decided to google around to see how to configure the tilt-wheel and back and forward buttons to work in Linux.

Big mistake.

It’s now 1:35am, and I finally have my solution. The trick is to use the evdev X.org input driver, as for some reason the mouse driver can’t handle all of my buttons. I followed sections 1 and 2 of this howto for the general idea of setting up evdev.

The problem is, none of the howtos I dug up really worked. Things sort of worked, but there seemed to be confusion about the number of buttons (xmodmap reported 9, while xev dumped events from up to #12). Also, the tilt wheel mapping seemed to be reversed. At this point, I began to suspect something was going awry, so I started looking over /var/log/Xorg.0.log. Here’s what I found:

If everything that’s changing stayed the same,
And everything that remains the same began changing,
I think that I’d be happy.

It’s 11:50pm of the last night of spring break, and for some reason I have the urge to write here.

I feel like I need to make up for lost time. I’ve let things collect dust here for the past term, so it seems strange to be trying it again on the eve of the next wave of school. Yet right now, I want to. That’s all I’d like to say. I know am rarely interested in reading other peoples’ apologies for not writing on their blogs. So I’ll try to keep things topical from here on out.

Tomorrow will bring Popular Culture and Intro to Operating Systems, in the lovely city of bridges. I am very much looking forward to it, even though it feels a bit deadening to go back to school after merely a week’s break. Even so, it seems every time I get a break I see the alternative — diddling — which makes me wish for the linear deadlines of the school year. I’m kind of concerned that this is what it’s coming to: preferring force-fed work instead of real projects. It’s hard to be both productive and self-motivated.

Download:

Close Your Eyes – 192kbps OGG Vorbis

Close Your Eyes – 128kbps MP3 VBR

Well, another school term has passed and yet another whirlwind of homework and activity has come and gone. Shifting gears was totally weird. I guess I fell into a mode where there was always another assignment around the corner that had to be worked on… the shadow of procrastination and doom lurking over my head. When there wasn’t, there wasn’t this startling realization or a lifting sense of freedom… just the realization that I didn’t have to go home and get studying any more. The day after finals were over, sleep deprived and braindead, I recorded this song.

This piece is about a month and a half old. While I wrote it, I imagined it as an experiment in multitracked pianos. Most of the primary melody however was improvised as I added layers on Friday. Everything, except from various percussion, is piano. The cymbal crash is a mixture of two samples courtesy of the freesound project. There’s some great stuff over there.. I wish I’d learned to use the site sooner!

If I were to make a kit for the rest of my life
In a day
Something for every moment, through each breath
Something that would protect me from losing myself
To guide me through moments of fear, sadness, and ecstacy

I wonder what I would put inside this package
Simple things perhaps, which at moments I know I’ll need
Like bandaids, rubber bands, and papers and pencils
A note with some writing on it, saying “don’t take yourself too seriously”

Colors, emotions, and nuances might fade with time
So I will have to pack them up into words, drawings, and music
Music that reminds me what passion feels like

I wonder what my kit would look like
It could be a metal box with a lid
Or a piece of paper
A brown paper bag, or an investor’s suitcase
Something to hold all my wildest dreams, and most solemn plans
To take anywhere and everywhere

Or maybe
It would be a tiny seed
A great truth, a burning flame
That when planted will grow and expand and change shapes
As I do

Never forget

As this moment passes

We will grow old.
We will lose hope.
We will have to ask for forgiveness.

We will find ourselves in our parents’ shoes.
And someday in our grandparents’ shoes.
And we will wonder
If we did the right thing.

Yet never forget

This moment of possibility:
Never forget
That we have two eyes, two legs to stand on.
Never forget
That this moment is ours to create.

We could change the future and make history
This time to never forget
The living hopes and dreams that shaped today.

And to never forget
That life goes around in circles
This is our turn.

Download:

192kbps OGG Vorbis

128kbps MP3 VBR

I know I haven’t posted much, let alone music, in quite a while — though that does not mean I haven’t been working persistently on both. I am very excited to finally share a new musical composition. I woke up this morning with the intention to create music, and work this tune that had developed by accident in the last few days. Originally, I had intended to put up an entirely different piece. However, this one stuck in my head constantly and just would not leave until I had completed it.

This is the first time I have done multi-track recording in a very long time (I believe on the last, I was about 9 years old). With cornelius’s suggestion to try multiple instruments in my mind, I tried adding a flute to the mix. Another instrument was added, and soon another. Keeping in mind that I never claimed that I could play flute, I will simply sing the praises of digital pitch correction. Hopefully this is what you had in mind, cornelius.

After neglecting my bike for a few seasons, I decided to take a look at it over the last few days. Bad idea. Apparently from my neglect, I’ve got some terrible bicycle voodoo on my back. It was an exciting weekend.

Late friday afternoon I was checking on the rear tire. I’d pumped it up a few weeks ago, only to find the next day that it was flat. So I pumped it up to 55 psi — the normal pressure I keep it at — and waited. I figured there was a leak somewhere, and thought I could feel a small amount of air coming out around the valve. So I leaned close to the valve and listened. Stupid idea. After a second of listening and with no warning, the tire blew. PAFF! Right in my face. Thankfully all it did was leave my ears ringing for about a half hour, and things were fine…

I love hiding secrets in things
Just for the thought that someday
Someone special
Might care enough to find them

I did a considerable realign of the chromakode.com front page today while chilling online with Whatah. We both decided out of the blue to redesign our websites, and after hours of tinkering, we both managed to overhaul them in an afternoon. There’s all sorts of new delicious markup-y goodness for you and your web browser to enjoy, as well as huge bandwidth wasting backgrounds a-plenty.

I decided to be a little bit risky this time and do some subtle transparency over large swaths of the layout… it shall be interesting to see the browser compatibility fallout from this one (I laugh at how badly this breaks now in IE) . Here’s a screenshot of it on my desktop for your comparison/reference. Also, here’s the original mockup I made when first envisioning the design. All in all, I’m really happy about the update. The typography is something I fussed with the most on this, and I finally feel like I can be satisfied with the lettering looking good on-screen. Yay! Well, I’m excited and exhausted.